Hello all, I know it feels like ages since the thread about my funny acting Ginny Weasley. That is because it was weeks and weeks of random blood/bile/urine testing and lots of head scratching. But finally, I just got the call today, it has been narrowed down to almost assuredly be "hepatic microvascular dysplasia". To be 100% sure there has to be a biopsy of the liver, but all the other more scary things have basically been eliminated at this point so it's pretty much a guaranteed.

OKAY so now, what's that? It's a liver disease that a dog is born with. Often seen in small dogs (check). The good news, many dogs with this condition live full, healthy lives, with a few simple diet changes. Fatality is rare, and mostly only seen when the diet is really the far opposite of what it needs to be. Basically she'll need a low-protein food, and some milk thistle. It's kind of funny, the food I get has two options, one which is much higher in protein, and though the dog store people always try and convince me to get it, I never did because being vegan I felt less guilty buying the one with less fishies killed. So that has probably been a good thing for her! And, funny thing also, her really odd symptoms came on a couple weeks after feeding them a vegan diet, one in which I was pretty paranoid about them getting enough protein so I was giving them a pretty hefty dose of different veg proteins, like hemp and soy. I think she was getting more protein during these two weeks, and that completely explains why her symptoms showed up.

Yeah the only reason apparently they didn't go to this idea at first was because of her age, she's 8, it normally appears at 3-4. But. from my reading, symptoms are very synonymous with their diet and I've always happened to feed her a pretty good diet for this. (not perfect, but close).